That's because "traffic engineering" is a completely fabricated profession full of people who are "experts" in a completely non-existent field of study. And they base their entire profession on traffic studies, which are utter and complete BS. It's no different than putting faith healers in charge of all our medical schools and hospitals.

The more roads you build, the more people will drive on them, so you basically create demand for roads simply by building them. Hence the fact that, no matter how many lanes you build, they always become clogged before long. It's called "induced demand," and American engineers are almost completely clueless about it. Until we stop putting engineers in charge of planning our cities, sprawl will never end and traffic congestion will forever be a problem.

I don't remember who said it but they said they don't want you go nonstop down the road. They want you to keep stopping at traffic lights to "prevent" speeding. If you're constantly farking stopping me at every farking intersection I'm pretty sure I"m going to speed to make up for it.

The Dog Ate My Homework:The more roads you build, the more people will drive on them, so you basically create demand for roads simply by building them. Hence the fact that, no matter how many lanes you build, they always become clogged before long. It's called "induced demand," and American engineers are almost completely clueless about it. Until we stop putting engineers in charge of planning our cities, sprawl will never end and traffic congestion will forever be a problem.

This is such an amazingly easy concept to defeat via reductio ad absurdum that I don't know why it still exists.

Do you really believe that if no roads of any kind existed, that travel would simple cease to exist? If not, you don't believe in induced demand.

This text is now purple:The Dog Ate My Homework: The more roads you build, the more people will drive on them, so you basically create demand for roads simply by building them. Hence the fact that, no matter how many lanes you build, they always become clogged before long. It's called "induced demand," and American engineers are almost completely clueless about it. Until we stop putting engineers in charge of planning our cities, sprawl will never end and traffic congestion will forever be a problem.

This is such an amazingly easy concept to defeat via reductio ad absurdum that I don't know why it still exists.

Do you really believe that if no roads of any kind existed, that travel would simple cease to exist? If not, you don't believe in induced demand.

Induced demand is something that kind of exists, but only because most areas it would be impossible due to financial, geographic and social constraints to have no congestion.

Many rust belt cities overbuilt freeways. The problem is without tanking a regions economy it's almost impossible to build your way out of congestion due to the costs involved.

The Dog Ate My Homework:That's because "traffic engineering" is a completely fabricated profession full of people who are "experts" in a completely non-existent field of study. And they base their entire profession on traffic studies, which are utter and complete BS.

davidphogan:This text is now purple: The Dog Ate My Homework: The more roads you build, the more people will drive on them, so you basically create demand for roads simply by building them. Hence the fact that, no matter how many lanes you build, they always become clogged before long. It's called "induced demand," and American engineers are almost completely clueless about it. Until we stop putting engineers in charge of planning our cities, sprawl will never end and traffic congestion will forever be a problem.

This is such an amazingly easy concept to defeat via reductio ad absurdum that I don't know why it still exists.

Do you really believe that if no roads of any kind existed, that travel would simple cease to exist? If not, you don't believe in induced demand.

Induced demand is something that kind of exists, but only because most areas it would be impossible due to financial, geographic and social constraints to have no congestion.

Many rust belt cities overbuilt freeways. The problem is without tanking a regions economy it's almost impossible to build your way out of congestion due to the costs involved.

Induced demand exists up to a point.

When it takes me 8 hours to get to Tahoe instead of 4 thanks to Bay Area and Central Valley traffic, I don't go to Tahoe (or I get up at 4 AM so I can hopefully be past Roseville by the time the Saturday morning traffic rolls in). Same with having it take 20 or 30 minutes to go 2 miles to the grocery store unless I go late at night. Heck, there are entire industries out here that base their start times on "When does carpool end, so the workers can actually get to work". And when you've stuck 2N million people on roads designed for N million people, it's not exactly shocking when expanding the road network to handle 1.1N million people does just about bupkis.

Now once you're at that point of 1.9N million people, and it's more about mitigating pain points than dealing with a chronic undersupply of roads, then you can get cracking.

/I have never seen a crowded carpool lane. I don't get why they exist. There's never enough cars in them to justify turning a 3 lane freeway into a 2 lane freeway (but only during rush hour)

This text is now purple:The Dog Ate My Homework: The more roads you build, the more people will drive on them, so you basically create demand for roads simply by building them. Hence the fact that, no matter how many lanes you build, they always become clogged before long. It's called "induced demand," and American engineers are almost completely clueless about it. Until we stop putting engineers in charge of planning our cities, sprawl will never end and traffic congestion will forever be a problem.

This is such an amazingly easy concept to defeat via reductio ad absurdum that I don't know why it still exists.

Do you really believe that if no roads of any kind existed, that travel would simple cease to exist? If not, you don't believe in induced demand.

But he's mostly right. Bachelors & Masters in Transportation. Not that means anything other than I spent a long time studying why traffic congestion exists. You are correct, no roads would not mean no congestion but at the other end of the argument, more roads does indeed mean more congestion. Many people make the same decision to drive somewhere because 'there are more roads'. Fewer roads (with the perception that it means more congestion) would entice some people to stay home or take alternate modes of transport.

meyerkev:/I have never seen a crowded carpool lane. I don't get why they exist. There's never enough cars in them to justify turning a 3 lane freeway into a 2 lane freeway (but only during rush hour)

I've seen them, and been stuck in them, several times here in L.A., including the eastward (southbound) sections of 101/134 and both directions of the 405 south of Getty Center Drive. In my experience, the carpool lane is only marginally better than the other lanes on the road, but it's rarely smoothly moving here in Los Angeles.

meyerkev:davidphogan: This text is now purple: The Dog Ate My Homework: The more roads you build, the more people will drive on them, so you basically create demand for roads simply by building them. Hence the fact that, no matter how many lanes you build, they always become clogged before long. It's called "induced demand," and American engineers are almost completely clueless about it. Until we stop putting engineers in charge of planning our cities, sprawl will never end and traffic congestion will forever be a problem.

This is such an amazingly easy concept to defeat via reductio ad absurdum that I don't know why it still exists.

Do you really believe that if no roads of any kind existed, that travel would simple cease to exist? If not, you don't believe in induced demand.

Induced demand is something that kind of exists, but only because most areas it would be impossible due to financial, geographic and social constraints to have no congestion.

Many rust belt cities overbuilt freeways. The problem is without tanking a regions economy it's almost impossible to build your way out of congestion due to the costs involved.

Induced demand exists up to a point.

When it takes me 8 hours to get to Tahoe instead of 4 thanks to Bay Area and Central Valley traffic, I don't go to Tahoe (or I get up at 4 AM so I can hopefully be past Roseville by the time the Saturday morning traffic rolls in). Same with having it take 20 or 30 minutes to go 2 miles to the grocery store unless I go late at night. Heck, there are entire industries out here that base their start times on "When does carpool end, so the workers can actually get to work". And when you've stuck 2N million people on roads designed for N million people, it's not exactly shocking when expanding the road network to handle 1.1N million people does just about bupkis.

Now once you're at that point of 1.9N million people, and it's more about mitigating pain points than dealing with a chronic undersupply of roads, then you can get cracking.

/I have never seen a crowded carpool lane. I don't get why they exist. There's never enough cars in them to justify turning a 3 lane freeway into a 2 lane freeway (but only during rush hour)

I could agree with you on everything except the /carpool comment. I use the carpool lane with a NGV, and it is a life saver. If it wasn't because orange county slutted out the 91 so the carpool lane can become a toll road, I would do my 45 mile commute in 45 minutes. Instead, it takes me 70 minutes just because of that 10 mile stretch, and I definitely speed out on the other 35 miles just to make it on 70 minutes. Carpool lanes are awesome, and the 91 carpool lane is usually full on rush hour, going steady at 60-65 mph.

stellarossa:This text is now purple: The Dog Ate My Homework: The more roads you build, the more people will drive on them, so you basically create demand for roads simply by building them. Hence the fact that, no matter how many lanes you build, they always become clogged before long. It's called "induced demand," and American engineers are almost completely clueless about it. Until we stop putting engineers in charge of planning our cities, sprawl will never end and traffic congestion will forever be a problem.

This is such an amazingly easy concept to defeat via reductio ad absurdum that I don't know why it still exists.

Do you really believe that if no roads of any kind existed, that travel would simple cease to exist? If not, you don't believe in induced demand.

But he's mostly right. Bachelors & Masters in Transportation. Not that means anything other than I spent a long time studying why traffic congestion exists. You are correct, no roads would not mean no congestion but at the other end of the argument, more roads does indeed mean more congestion. Many people make the same decision to drive somewhere because 'there are more roads'. Fewer roads (with the perception that it means more congestion) would entice some people to stay home or take alternate modes of transport.

Except that more roads doesn't always mean more congestion. It means more congestion only if there still aren't enough enough roads.

Not to say it's feasible to build enough roads in many cases, but it's often misconstrued as an absolute rule.

But hey the great news is your Liberal Democrats took the time and your money to research and outlaw plastic bags.

Do you ever get to the end of a trolling post such as this one and think "my god... this? This is what I'm spending my life doing? Given all the infinite number of ways I could be contributing to society, or bettering myself, or at least doing something vaguely interesting, what I've chosen to do with the precious irreplaceable moments of my life is to try to make people mad on the internet?"

[]Los Angeles woman sleeping on bus bench set on fire...[]Beijing and Shanghai each have more multi-millionaires now than Los Angeles...>Workers give up in Los Angeles...[]Bed Bugs Found At LA Central Library...[]School named after Al Gore -- but it's on toxic contaminated soil![]Marines train for Afghanistan by patrolling streets of Los Angeles...[]$70 million jail sits empty because LAPD can't afford to staff it...">City of No Angels washes hands of homeless (video)

But hey the great news is your Liberal Democrats took the time and your money to research and outlaw plastic bags.

Hey look ma! Another inbred yokel hick, who doesn't know anything about LA, offering his "learned" opinion abut how to run a major metropolitan area.

davidphogan:Except that more roads doesn't always mean more congestion. It means more congestion only if there still aren't enough enough roads.

Not to say it's feasible to build enough roads in many cases, but it's often misconstrued as an absolute rule.

Also, you always have to ask the question of "Am I fixing the congestion or just moving it?" They've been building M-5 further north up until Pontiac Trail, and every single time, the end result is hilarious massive congestion immediately north of the end of the road.

Even though (apparently from the studies that have been done) LA's traffic is worse than ATL, I swear that my experiences with LA's notorious freeways have been far more pleasant than with the frustration and clumsy crowded clots in ATL.

Seriously, even if the delay is greater, LA's freeways seem to be more of a "we're all in this mess together" mentality and everyone, for the most part, seems to play relatively well together. In ATL, it seems to be a competition to see how many accidents you can create in your wake and how many ways you can jam your car between two lanes to obstruct as much traffic as possible. Every nut for himself.

LA's ground roads are a different story. LA is the only place I've ever been plowed into for being stopped at a red light and then get told it was my fault for being stopped at a red light.

But hey the great news is your Liberal Democrats took the time and your money to research and outlaw plastic bags.

Do you ever get to the end of a trolling post such as this one and think "my god... this? This is what I'm spending my life doing? Given all the infinite number of ways I could be contributing to society, or bettering myself, or at least doing something vaguely interesting, what I've chosen to do with the precious irreplaceable moments of my life is to try to make people mad on the internet?"

not trying to make people mad just showing over and over again how Liberals are so very wrong

Clearly we're confusing I 405 in LA with the I 405 (Stadium Freeway) in Portland. The one in LA moves, albeit at a more relaxed 40-50 MPH. The one in Portland has variable speed limits that top out at 50 MPH, though it routinely takes 45 minutes to go from the Minnesota Freeway (north end of 405, in the vicinity of milepost 4) to Sunset Highway (real close to the midpoint, exit 1D). I drove from the 5/210 split to Santa Monica down LA's 405 during morning rush our in less time than it typically takes to drive the full four mile trip down Portland's 405.

Portland could probably improve that a bit if they either quit cutting TriMet and perhaps worked with C-TRAN a bit more to ensure more frequent C-TRAN Express service (TriMet has no routes serving the Stadium Freeway/Eastbank Freeway loop, C-TRAN Express has several), and close 405 on-ramps in the peak direction when it's congested.

The Dog Ate My Homework:The more roads you build, the more people will drive on them, so you basically create demand for roads simply by building them. Hence the fact that, no matter how many lanes you build, they always become clogged before long.

You actually hit on the core rule of traffic engineering. This fails when the politicians think Joe farktard whining that there needs to be more lanes overrides professional insight.

emersonbiggins:Remember, this study is from the same yokels who thought spending a billion dollars to change the font on every highway sign in the U.S. was something worthwhile.

Never mind the old font is grandfathered until the existing sign stock wear out, just like the last two times the font changed. And never mind the new font, just as in the previous changes, is easier to read at a greater distance or in bad visibility than the one it replaced. In the Highway Gothic to ClearviewHwy change, it's a very noticeable and much welcomed change, especially if you have to work on the highway every day.

meyerkev:Heck, there are entire industries out here that base their start times on "When does carpool end, so the workers can actually get to work".

Wow, that's just retarded. Seriously, it's just not that hardto carpool. In a pinch, cruise bus stops on a parallel road until you find someone going the same direction as you, then you both get there faster. Teaming up with coworkers, since you clearly have the same start time, also works. Seriously, the defeatist attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy and part of the problem.

elgrancerdo:I use the carpool lane with a NGV, and it is a life saver. If it wasn't because orange county slutted out the 91 so the carpool lane can become a toll road, I would do my 45 mile commute in 45 minutes

Funny you complain about the HOV lane being slutted out as a toll lane in Orange County, yet you imply you were driving alone, therefore you're part of the problem in the whoring out of the high occupancy lane.

davidphogan:Except that more roads doesn't always mean more congestion. It means more congestion only if there still aren't enough enough roads.

You of all people should know it doesn't work that way. Build up a road more, more people will use it, and the bottlenecks to the other roads connecting to it get worse. 26 West in WaCo, 5 South in Van, and pretty much anything in Sunnyside or along the multilane portions of 8 are perfect examples. Portland seems to be trying to rescue progress from the jaws of defeat on this in this decade-long conservative kick they've started. It's a city, you need more than one way to get around a city. The solution to too many cars on the road isn't to make it that much harder to get around the city without a car, that's only going to make traffic worse and hurt quality of life.

IronTechV1:Even though (apparently from the studies that have been done) LA's traffic is worse than ATL, I swear that my experiences with LA's notorious freeways have been far more pleasant than with the frustration and clumsy crowded clots in ATL.

Seriously, even if the delay is greater, LA's freeways seem to be more of a "we're all in this mess together" mentality and everyone, for the most part, seems to play relatively well together.

That's a relatively recent, albeit welcome, development.

LA's ground roads are a different story. LA is the only place I've ever been plowed into for being stopped at a red light and then get told it was my fault for being stopped at a red light.

I had that happen in Portland. But even so, save for a few self-important farkwads, LA surface traffic is mellowing out. I had no problems getting around the Valley by bicycle when I was there last summer without incident. Didn't really want to roll the city with a car full of almost everything I own so just popped the bike off and did it that way instead.

Baloo Uriza:davidphogan: Except that more roads doesn't always mean more congestion. It means more congestion only if there still aren't enough enough roads.

You of all people should know it doesn't work that way. Build up a road more, more people will use it, and the bottlenecks to the other roads connecting to it get worse. 26 West in WaCo, 5 South in Van, and pretty much anything in Sunnyside or along the multilane portions of 8 are perfect examples. Portland seems to be trying to rescue progress from the jaws of defeat on this in this decade-long conservative kick they've started. It's a city, you need more than one way to get around a city. The solution to too many cars on the road isn't to make it that much harder to get around the city without a car, that's only going to make traffic worse and hurt quality of life.

I don't agree with expanding some roads, but I've seen road expansions work in San Diego. Route 56 opened and suddenly Mira Mesa Blvd was empty. I-805 expanded and I-5 suddenly had extra capacity.

Portland doesn't have enough road capacity. We've tried adding transit which I think is a better investment long term but I'm not going to lie to make Portland look better.

Our freeways are defective and there is no good fix. I-5 through NoPo doesn't have space to widen. It doesn't mean induced demand is right.

We can't afford to have enough roads here. That isn't necessarily unhealthy, it's just a reality we have to work with.

Baloo Uriza:Clearly we're confusing I 405 in LA with the I 405 (Stadium Freeway) in Portland. The one in LA moves, albeit at a more relaxed 40-50 MPH. The one in Portland has variable speed limits that top out at 50 MPH, though it routinely takes 45 minutes to go from the Minnesota Freeway (north end of 405, in the vicinity of milepost 4) to Sunset Highway (real close to the midpoint, exit 1D). I drove from the 5/210 split to Santa Monica down LA's 405 during morning rush our in less time than it typically takes to drive the full four mile trip down Portland's 405.

Portland could probably improve that a bit if they either quit cutting TriMet and perhaps worked with C-TRAN a bit more to ensure more frequent C-TRAN Express service (TriMet has no routes serving the Stadium Freeway/Eastbank Freeway loop, C-TRAN Express has several), and close 405 on-ramps in the peak direction when it's congested.

[]Los Angeles woman sleeping on bus bench set on fire...[]Beijing and Shanghai each have more multi-millionaires now than Los Angeles...>Workers give up in Los Angeles...[]Bed Bugs Found At LA Central Library...[]School named after Al Gore -- but it's on toxic contaminated soil![]Marines train for Afghanistan by patrolling streets of Los Angeles...[]$70 million jail sits empty because LAPD can't afford to staff it...">City of No Angels washes hands of homeless (video)

But hey the great news is your Liberal Democrats took the time and your money to research and outlaw plastic bags.

SirEattonHogg:Hey look ma! Another inbred yokel hick, who doesn't know anything about LA, offering his "learned" opinion abut how to run a major metropolitan area.

Yes when i think liberal Obama Voter i think brilliant well educated, well read, and most of all someone that has taken the time to completely understand exactly what they are voting for. Not someone that would knee jerk vote for one issue like a free phone or legalizing cannabis or preserving their constitutional right to kill babies.